On Political Contributions, Partisan Blogging, and my Firing from the Cleveland Plain Dealer
Two days ago I was terminated from my engagement as a freelance blogger at the Cleveland Plain Dealer-sponsored group blog "Wide Open" after Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-Bainbridge Township) of the 14th Ohio Congressional District, apparently in retaliation for my previous blogging about his re-election campaign and my financial support for two of his election opponents, complained to the Plain Dealer about my participation.
This sorry episode is freighted with implications for the growing intersection of traditional and internet media, the definition and relationship of the roles of "reporter" and "blogger," and the meaning of journalistic independence in an era of corporate ownership of media outlets and cozy relationships between those who control the media and powerful politicians. For me personally, it is a story of tremendous disillusionment, due to both the apparent readiness of a respected newspaper to yield to pressure from an elected official, and the readiness of that official to manipulate the newspaper to retaliate against a critic.
The story begins in August when the Cleveland Plain Dealer hired four Ohio political bloggers to contribute to its experimental political group blog "Wide Open." In order to assure balance, two bloggers with liberal leanings were chosen, and two with conservative leanings. The other participants were Jill Miller Zimon of Writes Like She Talks, Tom Blumer of BizzyBlog, and Dave of Nixguy. Nobody asked at that time if we had made political contributions or done work for candidates, an inquiry that would have seemed ridiculous in any event since we were being engaged as partisan advocates for our political points of view. The project officially got underway on September 24th.
I did not ever write about Rep. Steve LaTourette at Wide Open. However, my participation in the project soon came to his attention. Although I have not personally met the man, I believe that I am well known to him. I had written extensively on my own blog, Ohio2006 (now moved to Ohio Daily Blog), about LaTourette's 2006 re-election contest. I explicitly supported his challenger, law professor Lew Katz (D-Pepper Pike). I also wrote about him being named in the Jack Abramoff corruption investigation, and what I regard as the suspicious connection between large amounts of campaign cash LaTourette received from the Ratner family of Cleveland, of the Forest City real estate empire, and their receiving an enormous contract to develop 44 acres of the Southeast Federal Center in Washington DC. (LaTourette was Chair of the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management which oversees the General Services Administration, the agency that awarded the contract.) My wife and I also contributed a modest amount to Katz campaign.
I have been told by Cleveland Online Editor Jean Dubail that Rep. LaTourette complained about my involvement in "Wide Open" to Cleveland Plain Dealer Editorial Page Editor Brent Larkin. I was also informed that LaTourette brought up the matter of my participation during an interview with Cleveland Plain Dealer political reporter Sabrina Eaton, when she talked to LaTourette about the retirement of Rep. Dave Hobson (R-Springfield). LaTourette mentioned that I had contributed the sum of $100 to the campaign of LaTourette's current opponent, former appellate judge Bill O'Neill (D-South Russell). Eaton suggested that LaTourette raise his concerns with more senior people at the Cleveland Plain Dealer. However, as a result of that conversation, Eaton reported my contribution in her story about third quarter campaign fund-raising by various Ohio Congressional candidates.
Cleveland Plain Dealer Online Editor Jean DuBail raised the matter of LaTourette's displeasure with my participation in "Wide Open" in discussions with the four bloggers on at least two occasions. He told us that LaTourette had said he would no longer talk to the newspaper, although he minimized the impact of such a threat. We discussed the possibility of my making a disclosure of my support for LaTourette's opponents whenever I wrote anything about LaTourette on "Wide Open." I resisted the idea, preferring some sort of general notice to the public that we are all partisans. However, the occasion for making a specific disclosure had not yet come up, since I had not yet mentioned LaTourette on "Wide Open."
Two days ago Dubail called and asked if I would agree to never write about LaTourette on "Wide Open," as a condition of my continued participation. The issue was framed in terms of my $100 contribution to O'Neill, with Dubail saying that Susan Goldberg, Editor of the Plain Dealer, could not accept that I might write about LaTourette on the newspaper's blog while supporting his opponent. This came as a shock to me, as it seemed a significant escalation from our prior conversations about LaTourette's displeasure with my participation, and the condition was so utterly and obviously unacceptable. When asked, Dubail confirmed that the arrangement was sought by Goldberg. In the course of that conversation he told me that Goldberg had asked him to fire me a week earlier, but Dubail had resisted. When I declined to agree to the arrangement, after further consultation with Goldberg by Dubail, I was terminated by Dubail.
It is clear to me that I was terminated due to LaTourette's intervention. My fellow liberal blogger Jill Miller Zimon had made political contributions and was not terminated, although she has made political contributions. (She resigned from "Wide Open" the follwing day.) I have made political contributions to other candidates, but only the LaTourette contribution was an issue. There was no policy against political contributions by paid bloggers until it was necessary to have such a policy in order to fire me (or, at least, to attempt to mollify the congressman). The policy makes no sense, in any event, since the role of the bloggers on Wide Open was to be partisans, not neutral observers. Syndicated columnists and guest op-ed authors are paid to express their partisan opinions, and no fuss is made about whether they have made political contributions or worked to support candidates.
As a political blogger, I am a partisan. My political orientation as a progressive Democrat is an integral part of what I do and is completely transparent to my readers. This is a crucial component of being a political blogger/activist, and sets us apart from journalists in the classic sense. It was understood among the four participants in "Wide Open" that we are political partisans and that we would engage in political debate from our respective political points of view.
While a rule against political contributions may make sense as applied to reporters, whose job description is to gather facts about a story and then present them in a single, balanced report, it makes no sense as applied to partisan bloggers, especially in a format where bloggers from opposing viewpoints square off in a debate. For a partisan blogger, political contributions are not an ethical conflict but a credential, proof of the blogger's partisan zeal. If a newspaper's goal is to hire partisans to fill the role of partisan bloggers, it is simply foolish to rule out people who make political contributions -- those are the core of the hiring pool.
If I had remained at "Wide Open" and had then written about LaTourette, I may have decided to mention my contribution as part of my story. If I did not, however, I can guarantee that it would have been brought up as part of the ensuing comment thread, either by one of my fellow conservative bloggers or by a member of the commenting public, all of whom are on the internet and have instant access to FEC contribution data. This just further confirms that a policy against political contributions by partisan bloggers is nonsensical.
I am extremely disappointed that the Cleveland Plain Dealer bowed to pressure from an elected official, to the extent of attempting to limit what a freelance political blogger could write on a hosted group blog and of terminating the services of the blogger to please the official. To me, this sad episode strikes a heavy blow at freedom of expression and the purported journalistic independence of a once proud newspaper. Of course, I am also appalled at this petty exercise of political power by Rep. LaTourette to retaliate against a critic. I do not believe that a congressman who stoops to the level of manipulating a newspaper to strike back at a critic deserves to remain in office. Most of all, however, I am disappointed that an exciting attempt to meld the worlds of traditional print media and blogging appears to have failed. It was a collision of two paradigms, in which the older paradigm utterly failed to grasp the newer, and an exercise in political clout precipitated the demise of a promising new venture.
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I lived in a city that had a morning paper, (republican,) and an afternoon paper, (democrat.
It was not uncommon for a lively debate to breakout between the two papers informing the public in the process.
Today the radical right wing movement does not want its facts? or opinions challenged, so it prefers to control the debate not through winning the argument, but by eliminating the competition; then they are free to distort the facts, mislead the people, and generally serve as a propaganda wing of the Republican Party without contradiction.
It is a tragedy that the mainstream media abandoned its patriotic duty to bring objective information to the citizens. Instead, it chose to serve a faulty and weak ideology that betrays their customers. It is, at least, shameful if not pitiful.
That's outrageous. Please tell me you're going to fight that decision? We bloggers are a unique form of citizen participation. We should be free to do or say whatever we want about political issues. If we become subject to the whims of politicians, then the media will have become 100% propaganda.
Please update the story if it progresses. Somebody has to put a stop to this kind of intrusion. And just how did he know what you had contributed and to whom?
Well ain't it grand to be living in the "freest" country in the world.....
as the American people sleep walk through the destruction of their most precious asset.
And the troops are fighting for what, exactly?
Congratulations for standing your ground and to Jill Miller Zimon for leaving, too!
Unlike Bush & Karen Hughes who dont read the paper & have proven that....we must read everything we can from an early age. We must read all sides, and watch CSPAN & PBS, and yes, I do surf over at Fox Noise, just to keep an eye on the enemy!
It's only when we know what's going on & they know that we know....we
Cleveland is one of the poorest cities in the country. They can't afford to put enough police on the street, the fire department is in a shambles,they don't have enough E.M.S. trucks, the school system is very poor, and the teachers are under paid. When it came time to publicly finance a new stadium, the Plain Dealer backed it 100%. It was pointed out by economists, that publicly financed football stadiums never make the money back. The Plain Dealer kept their propaganda machine rolling until the stadium became a reality. Heres what it cost; 375 million to build the new stadium, they could have sold the old stadium and land to developrs for 50 million, the worth of the developments would have been worth 200 million to the city, and they could have sued Art Modell for 100 million. That adds up to 775 million dollars. On top of that, the city collects no rent or taxes. I wrote a letter similar to this to the Plain Dealer, but of course it never got printed.
Mr. Coryell ...sorry about the situation!! Nothing surprises me though....
It looks like the Plain Dealer, isn't exactly a plain dealer any more.
Bowing to a politician's pressure because of his or her dislike for a blogger's stand on issues sounds more like spineless capitulation to me.
Every column by every "Wide Open" blogger should from hence be preceded by a wimpy disclaimer that reads, "All of our Wide Open bloggers are partisan. But we determine just how partisan they are allowed to be. We hope we don't offend you"
Not too shocking, coming out of Ohio.
The Republican machine in Ohio gives the appearance of being more than a wee bit on the crooked side; so much so that they occasionally get caught taking a new slant on Judas and paying people off with a bag of rare coins.
Wow! Incredible! You got paid to blog? Cool.
When you "speak truth to power" power responds. Keep speaking the truth. The CPD is not the only paper on earth. (yet)
I say you're well out of that mess. Please post here often. I'm going to add you to my favorites.
But I confess that I have no objection to knowing what political contributions have been made by opinionists, wherever they publish, as long as it's applied across the board. Such disclosure might have made a difference in the leadup to the Iraq fiasco.
If The Plain Dealer management claim to be above partisanship, they should review their coverage of Dennis Kucinich. They miss NO opportunity to excoriate him for his record as mayor, for his current positions.
The PD honchos apparently have some kind of personal vendetta against Kucinich. Anybody know what their hostility stems from?
Hmm, could that be the reason I stopped reading the PD yeasr ago??? Thought then they were hampering "freedom of the press" since I knew a lot about the power brokers and who they chatted with and about what!! When IO began to see the result in the PD, I dropped it!
I cease to wonder why our media is no longer fair and balanced as in your case the coporate owners are the ones who decide what we ctizens are allowed to see/read/hear. Anyone who has stated who they are and what they believe is first considered to be american if you believe the bill of rights. To have your voice silenced on one paper goes to show the quality of those who own the paper and who they support so if you supported another person during a race they are punishing you for believing your way. It is a very obvious way of showing what the media is turning out to be and is only getting worse as less independance and support of fair and balanced is the way the media is all going.
Seems to me that no one in the Republican party is afraid of destroying the fourth estate. They have no clue, or worse, they know and don't care about the consequences.
Seems to me they just want to create a world just like China, where no one can speak out against the government without getting shot on the street. Even more unbelievable, they make the general public believe it is the Democrats who are the communist. Go figure.
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